MAiD is Medical Assistance in Dying. That little ‘in’ is doing a lot of work.
The recent MAiD in Canada: Treatment Resistant Depression post attracted the following comment from Gus – book28@telus.net – that was just too good to leave as a comment.
Let’s DisGus
Are you people for real? Is this MD for real, saying “Essentially none failed to recover. Even the most severe psychotic depressions that had to be tube-fed recovered on average in 5-6 months, with fewer relapses than happen now.” This is completely false. How can such a lie be stated.
What is being said against MAID and those who really do suffer intolerably for years from intolerable suffering is beyond idiotic. The suffering is real people. Many are helped by talk therapy, and perhaps meds (although I am skeptical), some people are not. Their lives are destroyed. They lose their jobs, their families, their life. This is a fact, despite many of them being highly intelligent and capable individuals, who have received the best care possible. Wake up! I encourage you to google Adam Maier-Clayton, and read his story. Most importantly, listen to what his mother has to say.
Listen up Gus
When it comes to the data Gus, I have more data on these issues than pretty well anyone else on earth. You can download a good deal of it later on in this post. If you don’t have data to counter the following points, if you don’t have anything to say taht is it might be best to shut up. Idle comments will not be posted. Anything of substance will be posted, as well as any amusing abusive material that might shed light on you.
The Data
First, it is unquestionably the case that even in the pre-drug era people with severe Manic-Depressive Illness committed suicide. This was part of the reason for asylums – to prevent suicides and the asylums were much more successful than modern hospitals when it came to this. We are more successful now at secluding people for record periods of time even though this verges on the illegal than we were back then. Finally, no-one back then would ever have believed that one day we’d be offering to servicecide you as a matter of course – once the paperwork was in order.
Once in a hospital like the North Wales Asylum, people with depressive psychosis or manic-depressive illness found it very difficult to kill themselves.
The second point is that if they had a depressive psychosis, they invariably recovered and didn’t relapse. See Melancholia.
Third, if they had manic-depressive illness – the real thing not bipolar disorder – they had relapses but fewer than now. They were much more likely to be euphoric when admitted to hospital then compared with now and they spent much less time miserable and depressed then compared with now. See Bipolar.
Fourth, there was another group of patients in hospital who had schizophrenia – something of a living death with patients hospitalized till they died. This was the biggest group of people in any asylum. But despite this, before the antipsychotics none of these people killed themselves. See Mortality in Schizophrenia.
Since 1955, with the advent of antipsychotics people with schizophrenia kill themselves at rates equalling the rates found in manic-depressive illness. This is not because they can’t cope with life outside. It’s primarily down to the akathisia inducing effects of drugs like Olanzapine (Zyprexa) which appears to have the highest rate of suicides in clinical trial history. Eli Lilly, the makers of Olanzapine, refuse to release their trial data into the public domain.
Pretty well everybody with what is now called Treatment Resistant Depression will have had antipsychotics like Olanzapine or Abilify or Rexulti – drugs I would never willingly prescribe to anyone. How could I, if I can’t let you know what the risks are? Besides there are safer antipsychotics.
What we have in the case of TRD is a bunch of people who have effectively been chained down and forcefully chain-smoked for years and had alcohol poured down their throats non-stop who end up with cancers or dementia and in such awful shape death is preferable.
Who benefits by terminating them? The neat things about a sanctioned medical procedure is that questions like this will be buried with you.
It’s likely that even in the case of Motor Neurone Disease, aka Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig’s disease, that a proportion of these horrific states have been triggered by prior drugs. The statins are linked to this condition (this is data based). SSRIs seem likely linked as well (this is based on my clinical experience).
MND/ALS is such an awful condition that I imagine if I had it, regardless of the likely cause, I might want medical assistance in dying.
But except in extreme cases, there are a number of issues to keep in mind.
Sting-Free Death
First most (90%) of the diseases from which we are likely to die, from cancer to dementia to whatever are environmentally precipitated. This is what the epidemiology points to. Even schizophrenia seems linked to an environmental toxin possibly lead – this illness didn’t exist before we began putting lead in everything including the food we ate and medicines we took and its incidence is now declining as we clean lead out of everything. See Schizophrenia Incidence.
The toxins in our environment, out of which someone is profiting, are the single biggest cause of death. Along with the toxins we increasingly put into ourselves.
When chosen collaboratively and wisely, short term courses of poisons to combat serious disorders can save lives, along with a few treatments like insulin, but the evidence is increasingly clear that chronic and daily treatment with 3 or more and especially 5 or more drugs is shortening our life expectancy, increasing hospitalization rates and impairing our quality of life. See Shipwreck of the Singular for more data.
Against this background, taking SSRIs that are arguably misbranded as antidepressants and which many people find impossible to stop, ain’t a great option.
Second, manic-depressive illness, schizophrenia and depressive psychoses can be managed without going M.A.D.
Of the mental conditions likely to hit mental health services then, this leaves what were once called the neuroses and the personality disorders. People with these conditions are pretty well certain to have been compromised by being stuffed full of SSRI and related drugs as well as antipsychotics and anticonvulsants – all of which take the pleasure out of life, induce a restlessness that most militaries have found a useful form of torture, and trigger active thoughts of death. These are not things that any talking therapy can help with.
In addition, as the words neurosis and personality disorder indicate, these conditions entail a degree of maladaptation to at least some situations. Being poisoned by prior treatment is a situation anyone would find difficult to adapt to and in this case the problem is not strictly speaking of the person’s own choosing even if they all but begged for treatment. It was not freely chosen in the sense of being fully informed in that the literature on these drugs is entirely ghostwritten and the risk of ending up in a state of chronic agony, so bad you might prefer to be dead, were written out of the script. But it happens, extremely frequently, to people who were once view as being likely to adapt poorly to things generally.
Finally, and most important, a proportion of those you, Gus, are likely to seek treatment from will themselves be neurotic and personality disordered.
You, Gus, can easily seduce them into believing you have 3 or 5 or 10 different personalities and they will work hard to help you cement these in place and gratify you by telling the world about this amazing patient they have.
You can get them totally on board with the sexual abuse that happened to you on an alien spaceship at the age of 1.
You can walk them into thinking that letting you expire in a languorous fashion with a draft of some feel good liquid is one of the most uplifting things they have ever participated in – setting your spirit free of all that pain.
Some of them won’t be doing this because they are totally stupid. Some of them will be doing it because they enjoy it and think you are totally stupid. See Medically Assisted Death in Canada.
I have no problem with the idea that you find this hard to believe just like most Catholics for a long time found it hard to believe their priests were anything other than saints. But you won’t be doing anyone any favours by closing down discussion of the safeguards we all need in this area.
Johanna says
I did as Gus asked and Googled Adam Maier-Clayton. His story broke my heart. Adam’s family devoutly believes he died because his life was unbearable “in spite of” all the pills and hospitalizations doctors had tried. I tried to reserve judgment.
But as I read the BBC story of his suicide, I became convinced Adam likely died “because of” those treatments, not “in spite of” them. It begins with a video he posted to YouTube, where he lays out a heap of orange pill bottles. They contain:
“just some of the medication that doctors have given him to treat his mental health condition … He lists the anti-depressants, mood stabilisers and tranquilisers he’s taken, as well as “lots and lots of therapy.”
“Adam’s mental health problems first emerged in childhood. He suffered from obsessive thoughts, depression and anxiety. Later, as a talented soccer player and prolific goal scorer, he’d bind his fingers with tape to try to stop his physical tics from distracting him from his game.”
Emotional pain from childhood. OK. But “physical tics” that showed up years later, as a talented teenage jock? That sounds more like Effexor than any disease I know about.
Things got worse for Adam – much worse – at age 23. He had a bad experience with marijuana, followed by a week of emergency hospitalization. His dad blames the pot for destabilizing him, physically and mentally. I’m no doctor, and I know some folks can have frightening paranoid experiences on marijuana. But still, I can’t accept this explanation for Adam’s downhill slide. Here’s what it looked like:
“Adam began experiencing crippling physical pain throughout his body. He described the experience as akin to being “burned with acid”. Any kind of cognitive activity, such as reading, writing or even talking for more than a short time, made the pain worse and left him incapacitated for hours afterwards. He was diagnosed with Somatic Symptom Disorder, a psychiatric condition characterised by physical complaints that aren’t faked but can’t always be traced to a known medical illness.”
In June 2016, as Adam’s bouts of pain were becoming ever more frequent and debilitating, Canada’s parliament passed a landmark piece of legislation …
That was MAiD, of course. Adam’s grieving dad plans to continue to speak out for the right of people like his son to assisted suicide. Here’s how he explains it:
“For the overwhelming majority of people there’s hope. The research has been done. The medical treatment is there. If they have to go through a variety of different treatments and drug therapies to find what works, fine. Hang in there and stay the course. But when you know that you’re in such a dire situation and the science hasn’t been done, it should be your call when you’ve had enough.”
It’s at least likely that some part of Adam’s massive, ever-changing cocktail of meds put him in that dire situation. What’s tragic is that no one ever told him that was possible. He might have found a chance at life. Not a perfect life; maybe even not a “happy life.” But a life he could have found worth living. I hope someone explains it to Gus, who may be in a similar dead end.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40546632
annie says
When I watched the film and the discussions between Adam and his father, it seemed to me that Adam was seeking his father’s permission. Graham looked totally beaten and acquiesced to Adam.
Graham said:
“But when you know that you’re in such a dire situation and the science hasn’t been done it should be your call when you’ve had enough.
Following his death, Graham Clayton plans to continue his son’s activism by campaigning for an extension of Canada’s assisted suicide laws to include people with enduring mental illnesses.
Clearly Graham saw no way out for Adam.
“and the science hasn’t been done”
This is chilling.
Its as chilling as no one recognising Akathisia but insisting on talking about suicides and prevention
Its like having a cherry pie without the cherries…
In the UK, particularly, a vast amount of people are being accused of being ‘mentally ill’ when having an adverse drug reaction. A heavy-handed mob of doctors and psychiatrists refuse to budge.
If the drug adverse effects were not bad enough, every aspect of you can be demolished, blind sided, swept away in a torrent of persecution and deliberate heavy-handed bullying and nastiness.
With no one to back you up, family and friends can be suckered in. Everyone is confused and everyone is looking at you.
“and the science hasn’t been done”
This can be the ‘dead end’.
I was in a place so distorted, so mentally mind-warping I despised myself so much I was unable to look in a mirror. This is what the doctors did with their false narratives about Seroxat and nobody came along to diffuse it.
But I knew better, I knew it was all about Seroxat as soon as all the meteorites fell from the sky, what I didn’t understand was why I was mentally beaten to a pulp.
As we reel that Maid might induce us to seek a ‘respectable’ death, we must examine all the facets that put us in that position in the first place and this is going to be a rough ride if the whole systemic approach to adverse drug reactions and TRD are not appropriately addressed “and the science hasn’t been done”.
In an ideal world, moving the goalposts in such a way as to allocate MaiD for the MAD should show up the lack of transparency as to how they ended up there and who is going to look at “the science hasn’t been done”.
To get as far as being a candidate for MAD, in, and out, there will always be a tantalising trail – many not worth the paper they are written on – and just sign here…
mary H says
I, too, found the articles and videos of Adam Maier-Clayton very difficult to read/watch. Adam died, despite his many attempts to convince the authorities that he believed that there was a better way, by suicide meticulously planned over time. Sad? Yes, indeed very sad and touching.
We will all remember Heather’s vivid descriptions of Olly’s pleas to have his mum’s blessing to commit suicide. Eventually, being unable to endure his suffering any longer, he, too, brought about his own death. That, too, was very difficult to digest.
But, what about the rest of us who have cared for those suffering the hell of the horrors created by prescribed drugs? Ours are stories that will never leave us as long as we live.
What about the ones who suffered – with or without our support? Theirs too have been a “living hell” – every day being just like the previous one; every night being more awake than asleep therefore getting next to no real rest for their bodies; their days filled with painful bodies and painful thoughts. Thoughts which could lead to actions in the blink of an eye – or subside momentarily after the addition of their next dose of ……….. medicine? No, of substances of which their bodies failed to make sense; concoctions which came with praise but created zombies; prescriptions given with the promise of real progress but gave nothing more than the reality of a lost future.
Yes, we can all understand Adam’s hopelessness. His choice of death was perfectly legal and we can see why he got to that point – but what then? Does everyone forget about all that he stood for, all that he suffered for all of those years? No “everyone” doesn’t, for there is a family who will NEVER forget.
His doctors will soon move on to the next set of patient problems. Will they explain what happened to Adam as they print out the next prescriptions? Not likely. They will put the blame squarely on Adam or his family or the neighbourhood where he was brought up – anything other than the shed load of drugs that they pumped into poor Adam’s body for year after year with no relief for him from any of them.
Is that really the best that we can expect from those who we are encouraged to trust? Furthermore, having seen what they are willing to do in life, can we really expect any better from them if they had charge also over our deaths?
Anne-Marie says
Allowing assisted dying for mental health reasons is just so, so wrong its actually making me angry. Somebody in a drug induced mental state being allowed MAiD?
Who allows this?
What are they thinking?
Its also comparable to the death sentence where innocent people were sentenced to death. Remember the young man who shouted at his friend who had a gun pointed at the police to “let him have it”. He was put to death for that comment. When he said “let him have it” he actually meant for his friend to hand the gun over to the policeman. It was discovered later after his death he had learning disabilities and was unable to explain or defend himself properly.
This young mans wrongful conviction and death sentence led to the end of the death sentence for good.
There is no difference between this wrongful death sentence and wrongful MAid for mental health patients.
Trudo Lemmens says
Thanks David for the post, and Johanna and others for the comments re Adam Maier-Clayton: I always had questions about how medial reporting (& some academic commentators framing much of their argument around his example) simply accepted his & his parents explanation of the medical basis of his clearly terrible suffering and serious over-medication. In several if not most of these MAID cases, media just accepts ‘there was good care’. It’s a reasonable worry that many people’s suffering is pharma-induced. So the system that created problems in the first place is now offering a compassionate radical solution, and people buy into it. Another concern is that it’s portrayed as if the tragedy can be solved by MAID. But Adam Maier-Clayton’s death would have been as much of a tragedy with MAID. And it’s unlikely that parents would not have continued to wonder: was this the right thing to support.
In the current Canadian climate, some who struggle with serious problems of pain control and complex diseases are even opposed to the ‘safeguard’ that before offering MAID to people who are not dying (which will now happen with the new Bill), someone with ‘expertise’ in the person’s medical cause of suffering needs to assess the person and provide information about options. This doesn’t need to be a specialist under the new Bill. So it’s already a weak safeguard; many people wait for years, for example, to have access to a specialized pain clinic. MAID access has become so emphasized as a solution that it’s more important to promote access to that than to have access to a specialist. … And who counts as having ‘expertise’? Seems very open-ended and an open invitation to those who feel often all-too-comfortable to prescribe yet another pill on top of the 10 others already provided…
Last suggestion: one has to wonder how the push for and publicity around ‘good advocacy’ cases by well-funded organizations promoting broad access to MAID are not contributing to the demise of those who see themselves promoted to hero for the cause of progress…
Johanna says
Trudo, this seems like a very legit worry to me. There is a thin line between advocating for someone’s “right” to do this, and celebrating or even mandating it. And treatment professionals are often willfully blind to their own influence over a patient in this much distress.
The doctors who support and advocate for your right to MAiD may position themselves as the first people to truly understand how bad things are for you. Inevitably there is a desire not to let them down. Meanwhile, those who might try to talk you out of it are re-cast by your “advocates” as the callous ones whose talk of alternatives only trivializes your suffering.
Then there’s the lure of a meaningful death. Many people push aside suicidal thoughts by telling themselves it’s wasteful or selfish, and their only legacy will be the pain they cause their families. The chance to die for a cause or to help others has real allure. It happens in times of war, I’ve heard people say.
And once you start talking to the legislature and going on YouTube, it becomes that much harder to turn back. Speaking of war: why are young suicide bombers always urged to make a video first?
Anon says
There is no such thing as ‘gatekeepers’, safeguards or guidelines’ when it comes to issues concerning MAiD.
Many use it as a means to do what they want when they want!
It is abused and underhandedly used as a way of eliminating people out of pain and suffering.
What do you think happens when you spray a cockroach with mortein?
Many professionals use this ‘convenient strategy’ once the damage has been done.
I can’t understand nor appreciate, how we let things get out of hand in the first place?
Are we living in a society that is beginning to normalize death as an easy ‘get out of jail free’ option or are we burying the mistakes meds make by making killing an easy option.
Pain and suffering is an inevitable part of life and I can understand and appreciate that MAiD is going to become an interesting debate that is going to come to the table whether we like it or not!
As compassionate beings, many of us have crossed this path when we have seen our beloved pets suffer.
Surely, there must be a moral compass in how professionals certify death on a moral conscience ground?
Case study:
If a patient comes into your office and may be a hypochondriac making every ailment they have seem like a medical issue, how would a clinician tackle this scenario?
Of course, to put the patients mind at ease, one would conduct a number of tests to make sure that the underlying problem is not a medical issue.
This is when things could get out of hand.
If the blood results are fine and there is no reason to send the patient on an unnecessary ‘witch hunt’, why pursue the matter any further?
To satisfy the patients niggling concerns, the patient may be put on a roller coaster ride of their life and this is where MAiD becomes a viable option for many, mind you, through no fault of their own.
Contrary to what some clinicians speculate, you know that when test results come clear, one has to refrain from unnecessary tests, meds and procedures.
There has to be debates when it is morally and consciously right to use MAiD and when it is being used for all the wrong reasons.
Many health issues are accidental whilst others are Clinician + medicine + procedures/tests induced.
If we all had compassion and used it wisely, we would refrain from doing things that cause further harm to our fellow man.
Too many things are done for the wrong reasons and subconsciously we are allowing an imperfect system to prey on the weak and the vulnerable.
Let’s bring real life scenarios and healthy debates to the fore.
We have to all be conscious of using MAiD wisely!
annie says
If we kiss good-bye the above portion of the Hippocratic Oath, then we invite a deep change of character to the practice of medicine.
https://www.politicalanimalmagazine.com/2020/03/27/medical-assistance-in-dying-maid-pros-and-cons/
Healers will be asked to be killers. Health care becomes careful killing. And those conscientious persons who refuse to kill will be discouraged from practicing medicine. Sound far-fetched? It isn’t. To those doctors who merely refuse to provide information about MAID as an option, highly-respected University of Manitoba ethicist Arthur Shafer says this: “perhaps you should be practicing in a different branch of medicine or perhaps you shouldn’t be practicing as a doctor.” (CBC News Manitoba, July 16, 2016.) Keep all this in mind when you think about the next possible consequence.
Possible consequence 7. Sometimes history repeats itself.
Consider these insights from Dr. Leo Alexander, medical consultant for U.S. Chief Counsel for War Crimes at Nuremberg, in his summation of the Nazi German experience:
“Whatever proportions these crimes finally assumed, it became evident to all who investigated them that they had started from small beginnings. The beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of the physicians. It started with the acceptance of the attitude, basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as life not worth to be lived. This attitude in its early stages concerned itself merely with the severely and chronically sick. Gradually the sphere of those to be included in this category was enlarged to encompass the socially unproductive, the ideologically unwanted, the racially unwanted, and finally all non-Germans. But it is important to realize that the infinitely small wedged-in lever from which this entire trend of mind received its impetus was the attitude toward the non-rehabilitatable sick.” (The New England Journal of Medicine, 14 July 1949.)
By accepting and widening the scope of “medical assistance in dying” (a euphemism if there ever was one!), I don’t think we Canadians will become Nazis, but I do think we significantly increase the risk of becoming a dark, morally-calloused, death-embracing society.
Daniel says
I Think it should be mentioned that psychiatry has been used as a highly effective and means to eliminate political dissidents , psychiatry can be an embodyment of extreme power advantage ,someones very own words or what they bear witness to can be rendered worthless and a social legitimization of the person having their liberties taken away from them can be played into ,real mental problems from damages from drugs can probably further be used to cement the diagnose of the dissident.
Google on political abuses of psychiatry to see what i mean, it happens in the western democracies.
Both america and britain has also used assasinations of political dissidents ;for example watch from 2 minutes up to 6 minutes into : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nH6xkjMNdnk
Also : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton
I wonder how many cases are unknown to us.
I worry about what what states can do if they through psychiatric treatment also have a legitimized way to make people sign their own suicide, they might break people down to get them into a confusion and suffering that is making that easy, as such suicides will probably happen legitimately as well making these things go unnoticed.
After reading this post and thinking I think it is maybe a step backwards in terms of our rights
Anon says
Because in the wrong hands, MAiD can be very dangerous………………….
They are already doing this by giving NO RIGHTS or AUTONOMY to the individual targets by withholding information under the sneaky banner of the: Freedom Of Information Act.
Who are they really protecting: The abusers or the victims?
Enough said…………………………..
The weak and the vulnerable, have no voice!
If you speak up, there is a price to pay.
This is WHY the culture has to change so that those who see INJUSTICE can speak up!
Anon says
The Hippocratic Oath sadly, does not exist for some clinicians.
Some clinicians abuse this Oath (inducing harm) and then other clinicians have to undo the mess that other clinicians inflict.
There is no hero.
The ones that are left to survive the barbaric wounds of ‘their so called professional slaughter’ are never the same again.
Many have a held belief that quantity is superior than quality.
Are clinicians really upholding life or making a business out of the sick and vulnerable?
The ones who can see beyond the smoke and mirrors, are the ones who are totally inept?
We are not evolving.
We are just getting clever on how to maximize every dollar, out of the weak and vulnerable.
Some clinicians believe they are Gods however, MAiD in the wrong hands is as dangerous as a man who holds another person at gunpoint.
It all comes under the devious act of caring.
susanne says
Unspeakable atrocities still ocurr in the ‘caring professions ‘- give them the right of using legal ly assisted death to rid them of especially vulnerable people and there will be even more chance of cover ups Not every one has family or friends to watch over them or fight for truth even if probably not justice ,the way their families have done right up until today.
Police examine 15k death certificates at scandal-hit ‘Dr Opiate …www.dailymail.co.uk › news › article-9363949 › Police…
2 days ago — Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Jerome said: ‘The independent police investigation into hundreds of deaths at Gosport War Memorial …
WhatDoTheyKnow
Dr Jane Barton
Ann Reeves made this Freedom of Information request to General Medical Council via ‘What Do They Know’ (see FOI website)
This request has been closed to new correspondence from the public body. Contact us if you think it ought be re-opened.
The request was successful. It was re-opened 20 years ago by the families representative who was given a total run-around by the GMC I have left out the garbage they include in letters but it can be read on the What Do They Know website
Ann Reeves 8 March 2011
Dear General Medical Council,
Under the FOI what date/year did the GMC have any knowledge regarding Dr Jane Barton and her over prescribing of any drugs?
Yours faithfully,
Ann Reeves
Our ref: F11/3655/EH
Dear Mrs Reeves
We received a letter from Hampshire Constabulary dated 27 July 2000
informing us of an ongoing investigation involving Dr Barton. However,
this initial correspondence did not reference any allegation of the
over-prescribing of drugs.
Further documentation was provided by Hampshire Constabulary in their
letter dated 6 June 2001. This documentation alleged inappropriate
prescribing of certain medication.
If you have any concerns regarding the handling of this request please
contact Julian Graves, Information Access Manager, a
Yours sincerely
Elizabeth Hiley
Information Access Officer
Ann Reeves 2 April 2011
Dear Elizabeth Hiley (0161 923 6314),
Thank you for your response and clarify that you were aware in 2000/2001 of Dr Jane Barton’s practicing via Hampshire Police.
In 2002 I made a Formal Complaint to the GMC regarding Dr Jane Barton and the treatment my Mother received by her at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital. The GMC turned this case away at that time with no case to answer.
1. Did the GMC notify the Police that they had received a complaint against her from myself over the death of my Mother?
2. If the answer is YES what were the dates?
Yours sincerely,
Ann Reeves
Dear Mrs Reeves
Thank you for your email. Your request has been considered in accordance
with the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
I have reviewed the file held regarding the complaint you made in 2002
and can confirm that there is no record of the GMC having notified the
Police of your complaint. I should add that these papers have previously
been disclosed to you.
I am aware that since you submitted this request, you have received
further documentation relating to your late mother. I should therefore
also refer you to my colleague Janet Mauldridge’s email and attachments
of 12 April 2011.
If you have any concerns regarding the handling of this request please
contact Julian Graves, Information Access Manager, at
Yours sincerely
Elizabeth Hiley
Ann Reeves 5 May 2011
Unknown
Dear Elizabeth Hiley (0161 923 6314),
I am most grateful for you clarifying that the GMC did not inform the Police of the grave concerns this family had over Dr Jane Barton and the death of our Mother. It is still a great concern why the GMC did not do so as they were aware of the Police investigation against her in 1998 but this family did not!
It is further concerning in light of the seriousness of the death of our Mother and that this case was fast tracked to the CPS by Hampshire Police.
Thank you for pointing out and reminding me of the data that I have already receive from the GMC but from experience it is not always the case that everything is disclosed upon request…fact. Further this data has taken the GMC some months to do so and we are still waiting for other disclosures, I wonder why? Dr Jane Barton is retired and the GMC have grated her V.E. she is free to live her life as she wishes while we the families are still waiting for answers.
Yes, Ms Hiley as as you rightly state I have my DPA. I can see for myself the reaction from the GMC to Hampshire Police when they knew this case was in their hands, it all seems rather sinister to us.
Please inform me, which body did the GMC first get notice over the concerns of Elsie Devine’s death in November 1999 at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital and what date?
Thanking you for your assistance
Regards
Ann Reeves
Dear Mrs Reeves
Thank you for your email of 5 May 2011.
The GMC was first informed of Elsie Devine’s death when we received a
complaint from you dated 26 February 2002. I understand that a copy of
these case papers have previously been disclosed to you.
I hope you find this information useful.
If you have any concerns regarding the handling of this request please
contact Julian Graves, Information Access Manager, at
Yours sincerely,
Courtney Brucato
Dear Courtney Brucato (0161 923 6692),
Thank you for your response we are most grateful and yes we do find the information most useful!
Yours sincerely,
Ann Reeves
susanne says
Eugenics under cover of Covid
Covid: Watchdog finds more than 500 cases of ‘do not resuscitate’ orders made without discussion
Thursday 18 March 2021, 3:25pm
( How many really we will never know CQC claimes DNR’s were quickly retracted That could only happen if people found out There needs to be a duty on health workers to provide us with our medical notes rather than by request. Many still trust in doctors so don’t ask or are unaware they have a right to have their records. Or allow a named person to see them – (need to check that bit)
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has called for ministerial involvement …(Matt Hancck said last year that there was no need for well inderstood policies to be changed – whether they were or not the eugenic policy under cover of covid has continued.)
It said that a combination of “unprecedented pressure” on providers and “rapidly developing guidance” may have led to situations where DNACPR decisions were incorrectly conflated with other clinical assessments.
… but the regulator also found a “worrying picture” of poor involvement of people using services, poor record keeping, and a lack of oversight and scrutiny of the decisions being made.
The CQC was asked by the Department of Health and Social Care to conduct a rapid review of how DNACPR decisions were used at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The CQC produced an interim report in December which found that doctors may have made blanket decisions without the input of patients or their families during the first wave of the pandemic.
508
DNR decisions made since March 17 2020 not agreed by the person, their relative or carer
Some 2,048 adult social care providers responded to the CQC, and said that 508 DNACPR decisions made since March 17 2020 had not been agreed in discussion with the person, their relative or carer.
Around a third (180) were still in place in December.
119 providers said people in their care had been subject to blanket DNACPR decisions since March 2020.
The CQC said the figures raised concerns about whether the providers making these decisions were ;at risk of breaching the Equality Act 2010;.(!!!)
Stella Clarke told ITV News of how she was told by a GP that they would add a DNR order to her records.
When receiving a call to discuss a routine eye test on April 3 last year,
Ms Clarke then said she was asked what she would do if she caught Covid – she said she would stay at home – but was told the surgery would add a DNR order to her name.
Most providers of adult social care, and primary and secondary care, said they were not aware of inappropriate DNACPR decisions.
But other stakeholders, service users, families and carers said blanket DNACPR decisions had been proposed locally.
The regulator heard evidence that these decisions were “quickly challenged and retracted”.
Thursday 18 March 2021, 3:25pmBritish Institute of Human RightsHUMAN RIGHTS ACT REVIEW
Sanchita Hosali
2 April 2020
… reveals some shocking attitudes about whose life counts and whose does not.
A life less worthy
According to a care provider, three services (in Somerset, Derbyshire and East Sussex) have been contacted by GPs to say that they have deemed the people they support, who have learning disabilities, and other complex needs, should all be DNR. There was no mention of consultation with families or best interests assessments.
According to the Guardian, People in care homes in Hove, East Sussex and south Wales are among those who have had “do not attempt resuscitation” (DNAR) notices applied to their care plans during the coronavirus outbreak without proper consultation with them or their families.
Care homes in Leeds have reported that district nurses have been asking them to “revisit do not resuscitate conversations with people who said they didn’t want them” and a care worker in Wales told the Guardian that after a visit from a GP, all 20 of their residents had DNAR notices attached to their plans.
A GP surgery in Wales sent a letter asking patients with life-limiting illnesses to complete a “do not resuscitate” form.
NICE Guidance on how doctors should decide who could get emergency care during the coronavirus crisis was rewritten after complaints that the initial guidelines suggested that disabled people could be denied treatment.
‘Unprecedented’ number of DNR orders for learning disabilities patients
By Rebecca Thomas24 April 2020
Learning disability and mental health service provider says it is still receiving unlawful do not resuscitate orders
Hospitals and GPs were told earlier this month learning disabilities should not be used as reason to apply DNR
However, provider says it has received further orders it suspects to be unlawful
Anon says
Death by meds combined with so many unnecessary procedures and tests can so easily be misdiagnosed as a disease(s). The whole industry has got us hoodwinked! Euthanasia is an easy cop out when mistakes are made and some clinicians want to ‘cover-up’ malpractice. The med(s) are to blame for inducing the disease(s) and the tests and procedures may make health maladies worse. ☹️ But true! If one has some insight into what is really going on with big pharma, it would indeed shatter their perceptions about Western Medicine.
thato says
My first symptoms of ALS occurred in 2014, but was diagnosed in 2016. I had severe symptoms ranging from shortness of breath, balance problems, couldn’t walk without a walker or a power chair, i had difficulty swallowing and fatigue. I was given medications which helped but only for a short burst of time, then I decided to try alternative measures and began on ALS Formula treatment from Tree of Life Health clinic. It has made a tremendous difference for me (Visit http://www.treeoflifeherbalclinic.com ). I had improved walking balance, increased appetite, muscle strength, improved eyesight and others. ]
Dr. David Healy says
Thato
Some cases of ALS can be drug induced – in which case they run an atypical course and its not impossible you could show some improvement provided you steer cleat of whatever did the harm in the first place
David
Thato amelia says
My first symptoms of ALS occurred in 2014, but was diagnosed in 2016. I had severe symptoms ranging from shortness of breath, balance problems, couldn’t walk without a walker or a power chair, i had difficulty swallowing and fatigue. I was given medications which helped but only for a short burst of time, then I decided to try alternative measures and began on ALS Formula treatment from Tree of Life Health clinic. It has made a tremendous difference for me (Visit w w w. treeoflifeherbalclinic .com ). I had improved walking balance, increased appetite, muscle strength, improved eyesight and others. ]